Noir
detective fiction reigned supreme in America in the 1920s and 1930s, and
remained popular through most of the 1950s. And the author who was the acknowledged
master of this genre was Dashiell
Hammett (1894-1961).
The
former Pinkerton detective turned to writing detective stories when he was
afflicted with tuberculosis, a disease that would plague him most of his adult
life. He wrote stories for “the pulps” – popular detective magazines and a
series of novels that set the standard for noir fiction, and in fact likely
still set the standard.
He
published Red
Harvest in 1929, followed by The
Dain Curse that same year. Then came The
Maltese Falcon in 1930, The
Glass Key in 1931, and The
Thin Man in 1934. The novels are written tightly and concisely, and are
full of action, unexpected turns, and a fair amount of violence. (One of
Hammett’s fellow noir writers, Philip Marlowe, gave this writing advice to
authors facing writing blocks: “When in doubt, have to men come in the door
with guns.”) A group of his stories was published as The
Continental Op.
 |
| Hammett posed for the cover of The Thin Man. |
Hammett’s
influence on writers – and on the movies – extended far beyond noir fiction. He’s
considered so influential, in fact, that Library of America has published a
volume of his novels and a
volume of his short stories.
My
first awareness of Dashiell Hammett was watching The Thing Man movies of the
1930s and early 1940s on television. Starring William Powell as detective Nick
Charles and Myrna Loy as his wife Nora, the movies were widely popular when
they were first released. If you’re familiar with the movies at all, it’s
almost impossible to see anyone but William Powell when you read the Hammett
novel.
I
discovered Hammeett as a writer in the 1970s, during a resurgence of the novels
of the glory days of noir fiction. I also discovered the Dashiell Hammett who
was in love with playwright Lillian Hellman and the Hammett who went to prison
rather than divulge names to a congressional committee during the Red Scare of
the late 1940s and early 1950s.
In
the last few years, additional writings have turned up in archives and various
closets, including two “movie books” written for the scripts of “After the Thin
Man” and “Another Thin Man,” both commissioned by MGM Studios. Movie books were
essentially novellas written to help the scriptwriters develop and finalize a
script. Both of these movie books, and related materials, never previously made
public, were published in 2012 as Return
of the Thin Man.
 |
| Dashiell Hammett |
The
stories are less novellas than they are movie and Dashiell Hammett artifacts.
They even contain periodic filming instructions and parenthetical statements
instructing the scriptwriters how to develop particular scenes. Accompanying
the stories are headnotes and afterwords by the editors, Richard Layman and
Julie M. Rivett.
The
stories reflect the public tastes in movies in the time period they were
released. They often seem formulaic, with “thugs and dames” getting themselves
mixed up with the wealthy (and, in one of the stories, even with Nora’s very
proper family). The genius of the stories lies not so much in the stories
themselves as it does in how Hammett developed the interaction between and relationship
of Nick and Nora Charles, which steal the story and also stole the movies. The
dialogue involving their back-and-forth is still fascinating today, underscoring
how much Hammett could communicate by what wasn’t said as much as by what was.
For
fans of noir fiction, it’s a must-read. For those interested in how a master
writer developed dialogue, it’s also a must-read. For those of us fascinated
with the genre and the period, not to mention what Hammett achieved, it’s a
significant contribution to understanding.
Photograph: Myrna Loy and William Powell
in
The Thin Man.
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